Train Trouble
by csijenniferlynn
Summary: This is my entry for the March 2016 CSI Forever Online contest. The opening line I chose to use for this contest is, "The train's vibration slowly faded." This is a GSR fic set after the series finale (though it has no connection whatsoever to the finale itself). Sara and Gil are married again and are traveling. Please enjoy and review!
Author's Note: This is my entry into the March 2016 CSI Forever Online Fan Fiction challenge. The opening line I chose to use for my one-shot is, "The train's vibration slowly faded." I do not profit in any way from my use of CSI characters in my writing; I just have fun with it! This story is based on a vacation experience of mine, though there was no handsome guy or dead body in my experience! Enjoy!

CSICSI*GSR*CSICSI

The train's vibration slowly faded into the background. They were officially stranded. Sara and Gil stood at the depot's one lonely ticket window and tried in vain yet again to ask for a ticket back to Warsaw, where their rental car was parked at the station, waiting for them to drive it back to their 5 star hotel, where their room overlooked the Old Town Square. The ticket clerk again said simply, "Nie." He pointed to the departures board, apparently to explain why they couldn't get a ticket back to Warsaw.

Sara and Gil were in Czestochowa, a small town in Southern Poland, which is home to the Jasna Gora monastery, which in turn is home to the world-famous painting and icon, The Black Madonna. The two had walked the pilgrimage along the road to Jasna Gora with many devout Poles earlier that day, had sat through a suffocatingly crowded Mass at the monastery, and had spent a few minutes trying to get a decent glimpse of the icon through the thick iron bars that separated her from the massive crowd.

Gil had been guest lecturing at the forensics college within the University of Warsaw for the past two weeks. Sara was at his side at each lecture, helping with demonstrations and planning, and answering questions right along with her husband. Neither of them spoke Polish, though they'd each picked up a large handful of useful words and phrases during their stay. Clearly, though, their Polish was not nearly sufficient enough to have prevented them from placing themselves in their current messy situation.

They walked over to the small notice board hanging on the wall opposite the ticket window. "Odloty I Przyloty" was posted in large print at the top- arrivals and departures. Sara and Gil had already consulted this board upon arriving in Czestochowa for their day of exploration between lectures. They clearly noted that a train departed to Warsaw at 7:05PM. What they had failed to notice was the small printed out notice, thumbtacked to the board next to the departures list. This notice said that the 7:05PM train to Warsaw didn't run in November, and alas, it was November. The train whose cars caused the rails to vibrate and whose whistle they heard off in the distance as they had tried to purchase their tickets to Warsaw was apparently the 7:10PM train to Krakow. It "only" took about 20 minutes for them to translate this notice with their handy pocket dictionary; it only took about two seconds for them to start laughing.

"Great, Gil, what're we gonna do now? It's really getting cold out here and neither of us have anything warmer to wear. I really wish I had my hat right about now. Why on earth is this an open-air train station, anyway? Did they build it in the summer and forget what Polish winters are like?"

Grissom laughed and pulled Sara into a hug to keep her warm. "Honey, I have no idea what we're going to do, but there's got to be somewhere around here we can walk to. Shall we?"

He pointed toward the poorly maintained path leading to the street nearest the station. She nodded, but made him examine the departures board to see when they actually could catch a train back to Warsaw before leaving the station. Oddly enough, a 3:10AM train ran to Warsaw, even in November.

"Seriously? 3:10AM? Oh no, we can't run the 7:05 because that's a time when people are actually awake and at train stations, but we'll keep that 3:10AM train running because no one would ever want to ride it. Makes perfect sense."

"Sara, honey, I'm the only one who can understand your ranting at this moment, and trust me, you don't need to complain to me. I get it. Do you want to go buy tickets for the 3:10 train or should we try to find a hotel? It looks like the first train back to Warsaw at a reasonable hour tomorrow leaves at 8:35. What do you think?"

"Gil, we've got a lecture at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We can't just not show up. Do you even have Yulia's phone number to let her know we're stranded?"

"Well, no, I left my phone in the glove box in the car, which is in Warsaw… Do you have her number? What about Ignacy's? Do you have his number?"

Her look was enough to tell him he was stupid to have asked. They shared a cell phone provided for their use by the university. Knowing they had to be back in Warsaw before their 9:00AM lecture in the morning, he said resignedly, "Well, I guess I'll go buy our tickets for the 3:10AM train and then we'll take a romantic walk under the stars."

Sara rolled her eyes. Romantic walk, sure. How romantic was being stranded in a tiny city, practically a village, in the middle of nowhere? Actually, now that she thought about it, this probably was perfect fodder for one of those pitiful romance novels Catherine always read. At that moment, Gil returned to her side, pocketing two tickets. He smiled, offered his arm as though they were courting in early 19th century Britain, and said as she took his arm, "Shall we, dear? Adventure awaits."

Sara laughed. "We shall, sir."

As they stepped out from under the roof that covered the wall-less train station, snowflakes began to fall. "Seriously?" Sara laughed. "You've got to be kidding me! Gil, do something!"

Grissom laughed heartily. "Do something? Who am I, Mother Nature?"

Sara playfully punched him in the arm, and admonished, "Aren't you supposed to be my knight in shining armor in situations like this; I am currently a damsel in distress, after all."

"Darn you, woman, with your sultry faces; our hotel room is hours away- stop making me want to warm you up by removing all of your clothes."

Sara just grinned flirtatiously at Gil, let go of his arm, and quickened her pace down the sidewalk. She saw lights in the distance, and assumed walking toward them would lead to civilization. When she turned around to face Gil, the snowflakes falling gently in front of her face and the lights of the small town behind her in the distance made her face more beautiful to him than he thought he'd ever seen it. She took his breath away.

"Come on, slowpoke," Sara teased.

"Honey, I'm too busy admiring your beauty to move quickly. Besides, I'm an old man, remember?"

"Oh, shut up, you're not old. Seriously, Griss, I'm freezing."

"Since when do you call me by my surname?"

"Since whenever I want to. I'm your wife; I do what I want to. Besides, Mr. Grissom, I believe I've called you by your surname in bed on more then one occasion, and I don't recall you minding it then."

"Fair point." Grissom had caught up to Sara, and he took her hand. They walked quickly to the small town. They found a pizzeria, which seemed to be smaller than the smallest hole in the wall joint in Vegas. They entered, and were shown to a tiny table in the corner of the very small establishment. They perused a menu together, relying heavily on their pocket dictionary to figure out what their options were. Neither were overly hungry, but they ordered a pizza with wild mushrooms and red sauce to share. As it turned out, they had ordered the most gigantic pizza either had ever laid eyes on. Damn language barrier. After eating two slices each and sitting around for a while, the establishment emptied around them. When they were the only two customers left, the apparent manager came to their table and spoke to them.

"Angielski?" Grissom queried. No such luck; the manager knew no English. His pointing at his watch and then gesturing toward the door clearly sent the message that they were no longer welcome. It was only midnight. Three more hours to kill before they could leave this picturesque, icy cold town.

They left the half full pizza box and a pile of zlotys to pay for their meal behind as they stepped back out onto the sidewalk. It was still snowing and flakes were just beginning to stick to the ground. The couple stood still for a few moments, each looking around for somewhere warm to go. Both were more than chilly.

"See a hotel anywhere?"

"Seriously, Gil, you would want to get a room."

Sara smirked at her husband, who said indignantly, "Where else are we supposed to take refuge for the next three hours? I really was just trying to find a warm place to go, though now you mention it… getting a room does sound nice. Snowflakes on your eyelashes are an incredible turn-on, I must say. I'm not even all that cold anymore." Grissom grabbed Sara around the waist and pulled her to him. Traveling the world had allowed them to have fewer inhibitions around public displays of affection as no one they knew could be watching, especially in the middle of the night in deserted areas. A few moments of passionate kissing later, Grissom found himself pushing Sara backward toward the small alley between the pizzeria and the neighboring shop (it was a pharmacy, though neither Sara nor Grissom could be bothered to notice). Sara moved along, willing, but wondering what exactly Grissom was intending… it really was cold and this really was an open public area… was he really going to do what she knew he wanted to do? Her thoughts were interrupted as she stumbled backward over something on the ground.

Grissom caught her before she fell completely over, and they looked down together to see what it was that had spoiled their romantic moment.

For what felt like the twentieth time that night, Sara exclaimed, "Seriously!?"

Grissom and Sara stared down at the obstacle for a few silent seconds, then stared silently at each other. They knew what they had to do, though neither was particularly keen to.

"Do you want to try to get the owner of the pizza place to call the Policia or shall I?"

"You said adventure awaited us tonight, Gil, but I didn't think you meant a crime scene. You go pound on the door. You'll be louder than I'd be. I'll take pictures. Besides, I've got blood on my shoes. I shouldn't be tracking evidence all over the place, and I'm sure as hell not taking off my shoes in the snow."

They both looked wearily at the body on the ground in front of them. It was almost certainly murder. This was no homeless guy frozen to death in a corner. This individual was a young male, probably early 20s, clearly shot multiple times in the chest. The blood pool around him was gummy; it was half-frozen already. Sara leant down and felt the body.

"He's cold as ice, but it'll be hard to get an accurate TOD because of the snow. What do you think? Anywhere from 1-4 hours ago?"

"I'd guess similarly, yes, but let's not get ahead of the coroner."

"Gil… go get the pizza parlor guy."

"Oh, right."

As Grissom backed away, Sara threw the pocket dictionary at him. "You might need a few new words to explain "corpse in the alley" to that guy. Yell for me if you need me, and Gil? Be careful."

"Of course I will, dear. You, too."

As Sara snapped pictures with the Canon Rebel T3i she and Gil carried with them on their travels, she heard her husband summon the proprietor of the pizza parlor to the door. She heard Gil stuttering out a few Polish words, and knew in the pauses between words that he was showing the old man words in the dictionary and was probably miming gunshots. She heard the proprietor talking rapidly in his native tongue and assumed correctly that he was on the phone with the Policia. Moments after he stopped speaking, both he and Gil rounded the corner to where Sara and the body were. The man started screaming and ran to touch the victim. Sara and Gil both tried to stop him, but they simply didn't have the language to get him to understand that it was important for him not to touch the body. Clearly, he knew the victim.

It was chaotic when the Policia arrived. Three officers had arrived at the scene. One officer removed the pizza place proprietor from the body and escorted him to one of the two police cruisers at the scene. That officer remained with the upset man and was clearly questioning him about how he knew the victim and how the victim came to be shot multiple times and left dead in the alley adjacent to his pizza parlor. The other two officers were attempting to speak to Sara and Gil. Their pocket dictionary was only so helpful; apparently, tourists didn't often use words like "victim," "gunshot wounds," and "evidence," as none of the words they needed to explain the scene to the officers were in the dictionary. A lot of pantomiming happened, and frustration was high. Finally, Grissom seemed to get the officers to understand why he and Sara were in the alley; the smirks on their faces made Sara blush with embarrassment. The officers seemed immediately inclined to dismiss Sara and Gil as suspects; one of them even winked at Gil and gave him a thumbs-up.

Shortly thereafter, Grissom discovered that one of the officers was fluent in French. While Grissom's French wasn't perfect, he had become at least conversationally fluent during his time spent lecturing at the Sarbonne. He explained that he and Sara were CSIs (his French vocabulary included all relevant crime scene words as his lectures had been CSI related). He informed them that Sara had documented the scene with her camera. After Sara had uploaded her pictures to the police officer's laptop and had pointed out some points of interest in the blood pool and the surrounding area to the police officers, she found herself sitting in the back of the police car wearing no shoes. An officer was swabbing her shoes. When he finished, he cleaned them off as well as he could and returned them to Sara. Her shoes were returned to her; she donned them and stepped out of the cruiser to meet Grissom in the snow. He informed her that they had been dismissed. He had given the officer their cell phone number and instructed him not to call them until at least 9:00AM because their phone happened to be in Warsaw. He explained that they were leaving on the 3:10AM train, and asked if that was okay. The officer said it was okay for them to leave the city, and then informed them that they had better be on their way if they wanted to make their train.

For the second time that night, Grissom offered his arm to his wife. She accepted and wearily rested her head against his arm as they started down the sidewalk toward the lonely little train station.

They walked to the station nearly silently, each lost in their own thoughts. When they arrived at the station, they located the correct platform and sat on a nearby bench. They huddled together for warmth. They felt the rails vibrate before they saw the train approach. As the train came to a stop at the platform, Sara looked at Gil and said, "You weren't wrong about adventure awaiting us, huh?"

"You know what Andre Gide said… 'It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves- in finding themselves.'" Grissom looked intently at Sara's eyes. She knew what he meant and he read the affirmation in her eyes. They had had their adventure, and maybe, just maybe, they weren't finished being CSIs.

They boarded the train, and weren't surprised to find themselves the only passengers. They had a two hour train ride ahead of them, and while they both desperately needed sleep before their 9:00 lecture, they had other important things to attend to, such as finishing what they'd started outside that alley and maybe finding time to discuss a return to Vegas. As they began to warm each other's icy cold hands, lips, and cheeks, as a still chilly hand made its way up a shirt, curiosity about the victim in the alley and the train's vibration slowly faded into the background of their minds.


End file.
